Welcome! You have accidentally reached the blog of a heteroclite follower of Jesus: dave wainscott. I'm
"pushing toward the unobvious" as I post thinkings/linkings
re: Scripture, church and culture. Hot topics include: temple tantrums, time travel, sexuality/spirituality, U2kklesia, role of the pastor, God-haunted music/art..and subversive videos like these.

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Tuesday, December 11, 2012

a post about sex...and "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things"

I have been accused of being obsexxed with posts about sexuality.

A quick look number of posts by category ( "labels' )...see graph at top right under "Topical Diving" suggests otherwise. Looks like I may be obsessed with the "role of the pastor" or "ecclesiology." (or U2!)
But that's all about sexuality,too...right? (:

To those who worry about this obsexxion:.

First of all, it shouldn't be surprising to catch posts on sexuality here; as the header at the top of the page explains that such is one of six overall categories that this blog will specialize in.

Secondly, if Bell is right, then I can't not talk about sex:

For many, sexuality is simply what happens between two people involving physical pleasure. But that's only a small percentage of what sexuality is. Our sexuality is all the ways we strive to reconnect with our world, with each other, and with God." (Rob Bell, "Sex God," p. 42)...

Part of my passion is to play with the intersection of topics that don't seem related. Tim N. calls it my

Of course, anyone in this blogneigborhood realizes that the whole idea of a list of "unrelated" topics
is an invitation to test Aristotle's thesis:

“The greatest thing by far is to be master of analogy....it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars.”(Poetics, 1459 a 5-8, "The Basic Works of Aristotle") See: "St Mike Nesmith on genius and madness"

Now, onto the topic of the day...which may seem unrelated, but of course will be:

The phrase--which is a book title--is of course as set up for us to think about our thinking (and then rethink it). How/why does our mind categorize? The book, by George Lakoff deals with ...well,cognitive linguistics (zzzz?), with a classic example being the categories of the title: s.

The Importance of Categorization

Many readers, I suspect, will take the title of this book as suggesting that women, fire, and dangerous things have something in common--say, that women are fiery and dangerous. Most feminists I've mentioned it to have loved the title for that reason, though some have hated it for the same reason. But the chain of inference--from conjunction to categorization to commonality--is the norm. The inference is based on the common idea of what it means to be in the same category: things are categorized together on the basis of what they have in common. The idea that categories are defined by common properties is not only our everyday folk theory of what a category is, it is also the principal technical theory--one that has been with us for more than two thousand years.The classical view that categories are based on shared properties is not entirely wrong. We often do categorize things on that basis. But that is only a small part of the story. In recent years it has become clear that categorization is far more complex than that. ... One of our goals is to survey the complexities of the way people really categorize. For example, the title of this book was inspired by the Australian aboriginal language Dyirbal, which has a category, balan, that actually includes women, fire, and dangerous things. It also includes birds that are not dangerous, as well as exceptional animals, such as the platypus, bandicoot, and echidna. This is not simply a matter of categorization by common properties, as we shall see when we discuss Dyirbal classification in detail. lakoff, Chapter One, pages 5-8 here, see also first two chapters complete on PDF here

...An excellent example is the classification of things in the world that occurs in traditional Dyirbal, an aboriginal language of Australia. The classification is built into the language, as is common in the world's languages. Whenever a Dyirbal speaker uses a noun in a sentence, the noun must be preceded by a variant of one of four words: bayi, balan, balam, bala. These words classify all objects in the Dyirbal universe, and to speak Dyirbal correctly one must use the right classifier before each noun. Here is a brief version of the Dyirbal classifcation of objects in the universe, as described by R.M.W. Dixon (1982):

It is a list that any Borges fan would take delight in.The fact is that people around the world categorize things in ways that both boggle the Western mind and stump Western linguists and antropologists. An excellent example is the classification of things in the world that occurs in traditional Dyirbal, an aboriginal language of Australia.

The classification is built into the language, as is common in the world's languages. Whenever a Dyirbal speaker uses a noun in a sentence, the noun must be preceded by a variant of one of four words: bayi, balan, balam, bala.These words classify all objects in the Dyirbal universe, and to speak Dyirbal correctly one must use the right classifier before each noun Lakoff, page 52ff, link

It won't take long to make connections now between two of my hot topics:

--
George Lakoff on how he started his work on conceptual metaphor
Idea Framing, Metaphors, and Your Brain - George Lakoff:
Prof. George Lakoff - Reason is 98% Subconscious Metaphor in Frames & CULTural NarrativesL

Dumb disclaimer:

It should go without saying...but i wouldn't want it to... that since this blog is a Spiritaneous place to throw out thoughts/feelings/articles "in process," it does not represent any of the fine institutions you see by my profile that I am affiliated with (Heck, it may not even represent me! (:........). The blog is merely an attempt to subvert subversion and "push toward the unobvious" (Thanks, Tim N. for that phrase) on the six hot topics listed at the top of the page....Welcome, engage it, and don't be offended (for the wrong reason, anyway!)